Kentucky coronavirus death toll exceeds 6,000 as vaccine appointments go unused
Coming off the eleventh-straight week of declining COVID-19 cases, Gov. Andy Beshear announced 310 new cases of the virus across Kentucky on Monday and 11 more virus-related deaths.
The deaths reported Monday are from as far back as August and December of 2020, and January, February and March of this year. In all, 6,042 Kentuckians have died from the novel coronavirus and 425,333 have been infected.
Last week’s new case count was down roughly 400 cases from the week before, the governor said in a live update. “That is amazing. But a word of caution: many other states are seeing their numbers increase. That’s what happens if we give up too early,” he said. “If you’re going on spring break, please act like you’re here, [and] wear your mask when you’re out.”
The state positivity rate, which also continues to decline week over week, is 2.89 percent. There are eight counties in the “red zone,” where community spread is considered at a critical level.
Starting today, any Kentuckian age 40 and older is eligible to sign up for a coronavirus vaccine. Beshear urged this group, and all others who currently qualify, to sign up if they haven’t yet. With close to 600 total vaccination sites around the state, some still have hundreds of available appointments available, including the University of Kentucky site at Kroger Field, the Kroger Frankfort Regional Clinic, Norton Healthcare, and King’s Daughters Pavilion.
Likewise, earlier on Monday the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department put out a public plea for people to fill a few hundred still-available vaccine slots for Wednesday, March 31. The number of new cases in Lexington rose last week for the first time since late December and early January.
At least 1,319,323 people — nearly 40 percent of Kentucky’s adult population — have received an initial dose, Beshear said. Of those vaccinated, 57.5 percent are women and 42.5 percent are men. So far this week, at least 115,820 people have gotten their first dose.
Kentucky Public Health Commissioner Steven Stack said Kentucky is inoculating its residents faster than all seven of its border states. “We are leading in terms of the percent of our population who have had at least one dose of the vaccine,” Dr. Stack said.
Even so, as Kentucky’s vaccine rollout continues to accelerate, variants of the virus are still spreading.
At least 41 cases of coronavirus variants have been confirmed in 15 counties across the commonwealth, Stack said, emphasizing Beshear’s point that, “The vaccines are our exit strategy.”
Beshear reiterated that the statewide vaccination effort is a race against the variants. “We have to get enough people vaccinated before this thing mutates further, and before the [United Kingdom] variant becomes the dominant strain in Kentucky because it spreads faster,” Beshear warned. “This is a race, therefore we need people willing to go in and get the vaccine as soon as possible.”
Close to 70 percent of all Kentuckians age 70 and older have been vaccinated. The weekly coronavirus incidence rate among Kentuckians over age 80 is the lowest of all other age groups for the first time since July. This is likely due in part to the almost complete mitigation of the virus in residents of long-term care facilities, who were among the first to be immunized in the state.
There are 364 people hospitalized with COVID-19 — the lowest since June 25. Of those patients, 87 are in intensive care and 41 are on a ventilator.
This story was originally published March 29, 2021 at 4:43 PM.
